Vets'
preference rules at issue in Defense personnel reform

Despite
assurances from the Defense Department, unions are concerned that the National
Security Personnel System will fail to protect veterans preference.

Union leaders are worried that
the system's flexibilities for reductions in force allow supervisors to
circumvent veterans preference when downsizing.

Under NSPS, supervisors can
base groups of jobs targeted in RIFs on geographical location, line of
business, product line, organizational unit or funding line. Within those
areas, supervisors can designate RIF
competition groups based on career group, pay schedule, occupation, pay band or
trainee status.

Those considerations are too
all-encompassing, said Ron Ault, president of the Metal Trades Department of
the AFL-CIO.

"They've got it so broad
they can do it any way they want to do it," said Ault. "The area of
competition can be a four-foot square on the floor."

But department officials, who
have not shied away from endorsing changes
to the pay, classification and labor relations portion of Defense's personnel
system, insist that veterans' preference is untouched in the NSPS.

"Through workforce
shaping flexibilities, the department will create a reduction-in-force system
that places more emphasis on performance while continuing to protect veterans'
preference rights," NSPS regulations stated.

The Pentagon, in conjunction
with the Office of Personnel Management, met with several veterans
organizations in the fall of 2004 about the new system.

In a statement put out after
that meeting, OPM said the system's "flexibilities are being married with
pillars of the civil service, such as veterans preference, in order to create a
new, agile personnel system."

The American Legion, a veterans
organization with about 3 million members, was one of the groups that met with
the Pentagon and OPM. The organization's deputy director of economics, Joseph
Sharpe, said he is concerned about the potential loophole for veterans
preference, but thinks rigorous oversight and training would remedy the
problem.

"It's such a new program
and there are possible loopholes and we are, of course, concerned about those
loopholes," Sharpe said. "We believe that training is essential for
those things not to happen, and we've been promised that managers and
supervisors will be going through a training session so those types of things
will be prevented."

"Being able to properly
monitor [and] to decrease any loopholes where agencies can get around veterans
preference" is crucial, Sharpe said.

Sharpe also said he's hopeful
that the new system will speed the hiring process so that veterans don't have
to wait six months or a year to get hired. That prospect balances his worries
about NSPS, he said.

But Mark Roth, American
Federation of Government Employees general counsel, said he thinks veterans
groups such as the American Legion will see that training and oversight will
not be enough to stop the decline of veterans' preference once the system is in
place.

"They've pulled such a
hoax over the veterans groups who, I think if they knew this was going to
happen, would be up in arms," Roth said.

He gave an example of how NSPS
could damage veterans' preference.

"If you're in a group
that's competing for a job, and you've been targeted for a reduction, it is
true that veterans stay ahead of all nonveterans," Roth said. "However,
... they could actually RIF a work project on the seventh floor of
a building or a DoD facility which is all veterans. In that case [the veterans]
have no one they can compete with anymore, and they're all gone."

NSPS spokesperson Joyce Frank
said these concerns are not valid. She said the only change to retention rules
is that more weight is given to performance.

"Under NSPS,
reduction-in-force rules are designed to increase the impact of performance,
minimize disruption and simplify the process," Frank said. "The
retention order gives more weight to performance than to service time. However,
NSPS gives veterans the same level of preference over nonveterans as they have
in today's system."

Roth said that after the
curtailment of collective bargaining rights under NSPS, diminished veterans'
preference is AFGE's second priority, ranking above pay issues. AFGE and nine
other unions filed
a lawsuit against the Pentagon on NSPS labor relations. The lawsuit will
delay implementation of the system until at least February.